“Is this decision final?” Alden asked.

Tidsige took a step forward, casting half his face into shadow, the other lit by lantern glow emanating from the barn’s walls. “It may be,” he said, looking up into Alden’s eyes. After a moment he began to massage his neck. As tall as the Guild Head was, it was likely he had never needed to look up to anyone.

“It may be,” Alden repeated. He disliked the uncertain taste of those words on his tongue. “What of other guilds? Masons? Carpenters? Even a Fishing Guild might do.”

“Your barony is too remote to be of interest, my lord. A Masons Guild might be interested, assuming you have the stone to provide them. If not, a Miner’s Guild might be interested, if there are any local veins of ore, or if there is adequate stone for them to work and give to the masons. Then the masons might be interested. Fishing might do, in so much as they would have work, but the greater issue is competition, my lord. Every local lord has land connected to the great Chaudlac, and several have a Fishing Guild or two in their domain. Simply put, there is no one to sell fish to.

“Then,” Tidsige continued in a fervent manner, ”there is the most outstanding of issues. Contractor Guilds are not merely the most self-sufficient of the guilds, though they rightly have that reputation. They are also, to an astounding degree, the single best indicator for the economy of a territory. Though that may sound like an opinion, I can assure you, my lord, that it is not. It is the professional basis by which the Arvolt Company operates, developed over many years and instituting data from every conceivable region. And, even if it were merely my own opinion, such an opinion would not have been formed out of ignorance. I have, as Guild Head, seen the truth of the matter time and again over my twenty years of office. In order for a territory’s economy to thrive, they must, firstly, possess a Contractor Guild. I know it to be a fact of business. The guilds know it to be a fact of business. Arvolt knows it to be a fact of business.”

Alden frowned and, in his anger, turned away from the Guild Head, whose heart, once fluttering at the sight of the Guild Hall, now beat steadily in his chest. He wanted to argue. More than that, as he turned back and looked down upon the Guild Head, he wanted to command it to be done. To have built a Guild Hall with his own efforts, and to a degree of quality that the experienced Tidsige himself had uttered nothing but praise for, only to now be denied felt like injustice.

“I must argue,” Alden said with as leveled a tone as he could manage, “that the flesheater you see here is the most exceptional monster this region has ever encountered. I have it on the word of the Chanat that call my lands home.”

Tidsige gave a frustrated frown of his own. “Would that that were the case,” he said, turning to one of the flesheater’s massive ribs. “Before your residency here, my lord, there was another altercation with a monster at the mouth of Tejin’s Strait. It took five mages and sixteen knights to kill it, as well as thirty men-at-arms. Three knights perished, as well as more than half the men-at-arms. A disaster, Count Stowgardyn said. I agreed with him, and said as much to my superiors.”

“All the more reason for there to be a Contractor Guild,” Alden replied.

Tidsige gave an exasperated huff. He collected himself, and must have seen something in Alden’s expression, because his features softened and his tone grew gentler.

“For monsters of this caliber only the best Contractors would be capable. B-Class, at a minimum, and then only for reconnaissance. But to kill these sorts of monsters?” He waved a hand at the flesheater’s skeleton. “A monster like this would require a team of A-Class Contractors. The elite. And the elite do not concern themselves with small, undeveloped baronies lacking in any significant trade, no matter what wealth they might theoretically gain from it.”

“It is as you say,” Alden said. By his own recollection from his time as a Contractor, the sort that might risk such a venture was nigh unimaginable. A D-Class, maybe, or a C-Class down on their luck. But none higher. “But,” he continued, leaning forward, “I have a solution.”

“And what, my lord, might this solution be?”

“If the elite class of Contractors will only concern themselves with developed baronies, then I shall develop Lyonpool. You have seen the quality of my engineering already. And, besides a guild, I have already begun planning to build a racetrack, within which I intend to race a new breed of horses.”

“A racetrack?” Tidsige asked. Producing from his back pocket a thin notebook, Tidsige flipped through it, stopped, and read silently. “How many horses do you have at the moment?”

“Of racing breeds, I have only three. I intend to have twice that number by the end of the month.”

“You have three pregnant racing horses?” Alden paused, then responded in the negative. “How do you intend to come about these three extra horses? And what, pray tell, will their breeds be?”

“I have one storroc, one cwicrot, and one merehors.”

Tidsige reviewed his notebook. “Not the most compatible breeds,” he said, shaking his head. Snapping his notebook shut, he returned it to his pocket. “From your reputation, I know better than to doubt you, my lord. There is potential in what you’re planning. But I have many reservations.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“I understand your concerns, Guild Head. I can assure you, however, that, given time, I will have a racetrack large enough to seat a thousand visitors, and horses fast enough to impress them. But, before that can be done, I need trade. I need a guild.”

Reaching into his pockets once more, Tidsige produced a golden coin. Its surface shimmered as he began to twirl it in his fingers and, as he tossed it into the air, Alden saw the head of a dragon on one side and the vague imprint of a man’s face on the other. Not an impera, Alden thought as he watched it soar upward.

Catching the falling coin between both hands, Tidsige stared up into Alden’s eyes.

“Business,” Tidsige said, holding his gaze, “is often a matter of chance. That’s the secret most suspect, but also the one the successful will never admit. You can work yourself to the bone day in and day out, and fail regardless. No matter how good the idea might be, or how much demand there is for your products, when the day ends success or failure is up to the Gods. Now, call it.”

“And if I call it correctly?” Alden asked.

“Then fate is on your side, and I will, as you requested, instantiate a guild in your barony. Not a Contractor Guild, mind you, but a guild nonetheless.”

I suppose that’ll do. Stemming from Tidsige’s hand was a thread of gold, the end of which was firmly attached to the coin within. A coin which, as it happened, he had seen and followed as it tumbled over itself in the air.

“The dragon,” he said. There was an almost imperceptible look of surprise on Tidsige’s face. He removed his top hand to reveal the coin beneath, the image of a dragon facing upward.

“Luck,” he said, putting the coin back in his pocket, “as powerful as it is, is nothing without effort. A thing that I must learn time and again, it appears.”

“So you’ll do it?” Alden asked.

“I will. It will take time to find a suitable guild, however. Not many are so willing to take a chance on a barony this far from the heart of the Empire.”

“That will not be an issue. Though, if I may be so bold, I would like to make a suggestion.”

“What would that be?” Tidsige asked.

“Somewhere in Tejin’s Strait there exists a special type of grass. As blue as the sky, I’m told. I’ve heard from some of my Chanat subjects that scholars from Tormere College have shown quite an interest in it. I plan to cultivate it here, if possible.”

Tidsige nodded curiously. “Is it some medicinal plant?”

“Not so far as I am aware, though there may be some medicinal properties as well. Its effects, I’m told, are merely in the realm of enhancing livestock.”

Sighing, the Guild Head reviewed his notebook once more. “There are but a few Apothecary Guilds, and fewer Scholar Guilds. Neither are likely to come here, I’m afraid, nor would their presence be of much use to you. There might be some small hope for a Butcher Guild–”

“No Butcher Guilds,” Alden said.

“Then we are left only with Farming Guilds. They might take interest in such a crop, if you can show them proof of its effects. Elsewise, they would still be useful. Food is the base upon which all life is wrought, after all.”

With the plan set, Alden escorted the Guild Head out of the barn and back to the Guild Hall, which, the Guild Head was excited to find out, also contained several rooms on the upper floors to sleep in, each furnished as luxuriously as a poor baron could afford.

“It will take some weeks before a letter is sent,” Tidsige said, standing in the doorway to his room. His belongings, which were neatly stored in a small leather bag, were placed beside the bed, and Alden wondered, considering the bag’s size, if the Guild Head had planned to stay a night at all.

“I eagerly await it,” Alden said. He left Tidsige and walked down the stairs and out of the Guild Hall.

Outside, in the fresh air that smelled of lakewater and soil, he focused his heightened senses in search of Dayan and found him at the south end of town, practicing his spear. Taking the Great One from the stables, Alden rode at a gallop, his eyes casting fretful glances toward the sun.

Dayan’s spearwork was a sight to behold. Hama’s Shadow, Dayan’s personal spear, cut through the air with a speed and grace Alden had never seen from another. He guessed that, if the two came to blows, Alden would prove the better spearman by skill alone, if only just. Even still, few came to mind that Dayan couldn’t overwhelm. All the more it pained him to be sending him off.

“Dayan,” he said. The Chanat warrior finished a thrust, the force of it sending out a small shockwave of wind, then turned and bowed.

“I await your orders, my lord,” Dayan said.

Dismounting from his horse, Alden said “I recall you mentioning the grass of the Sky Plains. I want you to gather some for me.”

“It will be done,” Dayan replied.

“I need it as soon as possible.”

“Then I will go now.” He moved to his own horse without so much as a look of defiance or concern. A nice change of pace, Alden thought.

“How long will it take?” Alden asked.

Atop his horse, Dayan scrunched his face in a look of calculation. “Four or five days, if I do not rest.”

No rest? Alden abhorred the thought. “Rest when you need to, Dayan. This task is not so important that you should harm yourself. And you’ll need a carriage with you. I want as much of this grass as you can safely gather”

Dayan nodded. “I will need to take a few others with me, including my uncle.” He paused to think. “The grass will die. It does not fair well in this northern soil.”

Alden looked at him, opened up a blue screen filled with a thousand words, and said “Let me worry about that.”